


White Elephant Gift

by hauntedlittledoll



Category: Young Avengers (Comics)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-17
Updated: 2018-06-17
Packaged: 2019-05-24 12:10:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 791
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14954435
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hauntedlittledoll/pseuds/hauntedlittledoll
Summary: Everyone wants a Maximoff Twin of their very own.





	White Elephant Gift

_“You’re the table everyone wants at Starbucks,” Gansey mused as he began to walk again._

_Blue blinked. “What?”_

_Over his shoulder, Gansey said, “Next to the wall plug.”_

\- Maggie Stiefvater; **The Raven Boys**

* * *

 

"I was just trying to get some coffee,” Billy insisted as soon as the gag was gone.  It was a mostly useless waste of air.

Tommy wasn’t listening.  Tommy was griping.

“… idiots with nothing better to do …”

Griping was Thomas Shepherd’s natural state of being, and Billy would never admit how much he appreciated that particular character flaw.  It was so much easier to keep track of Tommy in a fight if the speedster’s mouth was going.

“… of all the self-righteous …”

“I was just ordering coffee,” Billy repeated.  “Kate said coffee.  I was getting coffee.”

_It was more that Kate had **commanded**_ _coffee._

Billy had been closest, he wasn’t needed for post-battle clean-up, and Kate had been poking the would-be commander of a mutant sea sponge army with a pointy stick.  Billy didn’t argue with Kate when she was armed and also suffering the indignity of damp spandex.

Tommy had been distracted working damage control on a bus load of kids that would never ever watch cartoons again, and Teddy had been helping rehydrate shrunken sponge creatures for questioning.

It was _coffee_.  Billy could handle _coffee_.

Tommy stopped swearing at the handcuffs and looked Billy in the eye.  “Why do they always have to snatch _you_?” his twin asked, the beginning of an earnest whine creeping into the last word.

“I don’t know,” Billy admitted reluctantly.

“I mean,” Tommy continued, giving up on the key that he must have liberated from one of the unconscious goons, “any self-respecting bad guy could at least go for the good looking twin.  I’ve got style.  Attitude.  Powers.  A criminal record.  Lean back.”

The speedster wrapped the chain around one hand, and Billy barely obeyed in time as the chain gave way with a resounding snap that made his ears ring.

“Seriously,” Tommy continued, shifting to get at the chain between Billy’s ankles, “the smart thing to do would be going after the teenage fugative.  You know, make a little money for their trouble.  Or hey! They could kidnap the long lost alien prince and hold him for ransom.  That kind of intergalactic wealth has to tempt somebody, right?”

“Leave Teddy out of this,” Billy grumbled, staggering free and stumbling over a minion.  Not that he was at all keen to find out what he would be willing to do to get _Tommy_ back if their positions were ever reversed.

“We run around with former/future supervillains,” Tommy continued on, oblivious to Billy’s dark train of thought as he caught the other boy around the waist.  The speedster tugged him upright and gave him a nudge towards the ladder.  “They’ve got enemies–lots of them!  They muck around with time and dimensions and physics,” Tommy griped as Billy resisted being carried up the ladder.  “And the girls …”

Billy paused halfway up and waited expectantly.

“… okay, the girls would kick the ass of anyone stupid enough to try,” Tommy snorted.  “You know it, and I know it, but the world is full of stupid people, bro.”

_No argument there._

“I’m just saying,” Tommy called up after him, failing to wait patiently at the base.  “The bad guys have options.  Choices, but _no_ ,” his brother stressed, “the bad guys always go for the scrawny dork instead.”

Tommy had many issues that he preferred to repress with gleeful abandon, but the sheer number of people out to get his reality-warping twin was right up there with government-sanctioned captivity.

“I’m not a scrawny dork,” Billy countered smartly despite the probable concussion.  “You’re a scrawny dork.  No, you’re like two scrawny dorks,” he attempted to clarify and failed.

“Don’t wish that on the world, Bee,” Teddy coaxed, offering Billy a hand up and out of the dank hole.  “It won’t survive.”

“Yeah,” Kate chimed in.  “The last thing this world needs is another Maximoff Twin."  She was twirling an arrow expertly from her seat atop a small stack of unconscious minions, and she smiled brightly at Billy before plunging the pointed end into the bicep of a twitching goon.

The gun slipped from spasming fingers, and Billy sort of loved her right then.

"That’s a dirty lie,” Tommy argued as he emerged.  “We are a _gift_ , Hawkeye.  A _gift_.”

“Sure,” Kate returned sweetly.  “Of the white elephant variety.”

_It was a working theory_ , Billy considered absently, leaning into Teddy to avoid flailing speedster limbs as he surveyed the wide swathe of destruction surrounding them.  _As good as any other really._

_Anything was possible for a Maximoff Twin; you just never knew what you were going to get._


End file.
